During a lecture Monday night, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said that fellow justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “is responsible for eliminating sex discrimination from American law,” according to The New York Law Journal.
Kagan was speaking at a forum that celebrated Ginsburg’s fight for female equality. Kagan credited Ginsburgh and Sandra Day O’Connor for paving the way for women in this country.
“In those 25 years, the world has changed, so that my and Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor’s post-law school career paths were ever so much easier,” said Kagan.
The lecture took place at the New York City Bar Association, which hosted some 400 attendees, most of whom were women. Ginsburg was in attendance, sitting in the front row, as Kagan made her remarks.
Kagan spoke of the majority opinion Ginsburg wrote in the 1996 case of United States v. Virginia. In that case, the Supreme Court struck down the male-only admission policy of the Virginia Military Institute.
“As a lawyer … she chose her clients, her cases and her targets with exquisite care to avoid pushing the court too far, too fast,” Kagan said.
The event on Monday was part of the New York City Bar’s annual Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Distinguished Lecture on Women and the Law. The event began back in 2000. This year’s event was the first time that Ginsburg was honored. Former honorees of the event include former Chief Judge of New York Judith Kaye, Madeleine Albright and former New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Linda Greenhouse.
Both of the justices answered questions following the speech given by Kagan.
“I am a little worried that the gains that women have made have slowed and there could even be a backslide,” Ginsburg said. “I wonder why today’s young women don’t seem to be as fired up as the women in my generation were about ensuring that women have an equal chance to aspire to follow their dreams.”